The Reincarnated Lizardman Wants a Hamburger

Sometimes, when people learn a shocking truth, they unconsciously act to protect their minds. In Daria’s case, she fainted.

Daria regained consciousness several dozen minutes later.

Frowning as if she had just woken from a terrible nightmare, Daria sat up and soon realized that what she had experienced wasn’t a nightmare but a horrifying reality.

Having great insight isn’t always convenient.

As soon as she came to her senses, Daria immediately asked the demon girl, “So… you’re the demon written about in that journal, aren’t you?”

“Eek…! D-don’t come near me!”

But the demon girl, terrified by her question, hid behind Kurt.

Kurt stepped in to answer for her. “Seems like it. She doesn’t seem to remember much from that time, but you saw it too, right? The description of the demon in the notebook.”

“…Yes.”

While Daria was unconscious, Kurt had already spoken briefly with the demon girl, so he answered on behalf of the terrified girl.

There was a gap of thousands of years between the time the old notebook was written and the present, and there was a significant discrepancy between the appearance of the demon girl before them and the demon described in the journal. However, it was clear that the demon girl was the innocent victim written about in the journal.

Ironically, the proof of this was the horrifying experimental records written in the old journal.

The records detailed the results of experiments conducted by literally throwing the demon into a living hell while she was still alive. At the same time, they also contained detailed descriptions of the demon’s characteristics that even the Holy Kingdom had not been aware of.

It is commonly known that demons are immortal beings.

However, the Holy Kingdom had almost no information on how demons lived their immortal lives.

Only the experimental journal contained a literal dissection of the demon’s characteristics.

To put it simply, demons are not immortal because they cannot die.

Rather, demons have ordinary bodies just like other humanoid races. They can be killed if one tries hard enough, and they age over time.

However, the immortality of demons is proven not through life but through death.

Even if a demon dies, they can resurrect by reconstructing their body using their soul as a medium. The time it takes to resurrect is proportional to the damage done to their body and mind. Even if their body is completely destroyed, they can still create a new body from nothing and resurrect, though it may take an incredibly long time.

That was the immortality of demons.

At the same time, it could be called a half-baked immortality.

When demons return from death, part of their soul is damaged. During the process of healing this damaged soul, the demon gradually becomes a slightly different being from the demon they were before resurrection.

From changes in their physical appearance to memory loss and shifts in personality, they slowly become a different person.

And these changes occur more significantly depending on the extent of the damage to their body during the process of returning from death.

Thus, as demons die and resurrect multiple times, they gradually become completely different beings.

To use Kurt’s reincarnation analogy, it’s like the “Ship of Theseus.”

Can a being that has lost all traces of their first life’s personality, memories, and appearance still be considered the same person?

Because of this, demons also had different ways of accepting resurrection. Some insisted that they were still themselves even after resurrection, feeling no change in their identity. Others considered their life before resurrection as a past life and drew a line between the two. Some even went so far as to call their pre-resurrection self their “parent,” completely separating themselves from that existence.

…So the test subject trembled and explained in pain.

“…!”

At that moment, Daria remembered the contents of the biological experiments written in the notebook and covered her mouth again.

The old notebook seemed to prove just how endlessly cruel and horrifying humans could become when they treated another human as a beast.

After collecting herself for a moment, Daria faced the demon girl, who was hiding behind Kurt and looking at her with fearful eyes.

According to the contents, it explained how the demon girl was still alive thousands of years later and why her appearance had changed so drastically.

Additionally, while Daria was unconscious, Kurt had spoken with the demon girl and learned that she had lost most of her memories and woke up one day alone in this ancient ruin.

She had spent years alone in the ruins without any memory or knowledge of how to leave, until Kurt and his party entered when the ruins’ door opened for the first time.

‘…Then, how many times has this girl, who looks completely different from what’s written in the notebook and has lost most of her memories, died and resurrected here?’

Daria shook her head to dispel the chilling thought that suddenly crossed her mind.

Then, she cautiously approached the demon girl and spoke.

“Um… so… can I call you Demon Girl…?”

“Eek…! D-don’t come near me!”

“Ugh…!”

But the demon girl, still hiding behind Kurt, was clearly terrified of Daria.

It seemed that the sight of Daria chasing her had left a deep impression of fear.

In fact, Daria had a somewhat unfair reason for this.

Since childhood, Daria had been fascinated by the artifacts of the Ancient Empire, but her village was destroyed by a mage. After that, she was trained as a special holy nun to prevent more victims like herself from appearing in the Holy Kingdom. Even as an adult, working as a special holy nun, that training had gradually become a conviction.

When she first met Liche, she had been filled with even more prejudice and conviction about the Four Great Evil Races. In fact, she had improved a lot since then.

Moreover, the other party was a demon, not just any other race.

Originally, the classification of the Four Great Evil Races started with demons, and other races were added one by one. Considering that, the danger of demons couldn’t be compared to the other Four Great Evil Races like dragons, wizards, and vampires.

Of course, the Holy Kingdom probably didn’t know about the circumstances within the demon race. Even the demons themselves likely didn’t know that the incident where the leader of the peace faction went missing was actually caused by a rogue group of wizards who had long been ostracized by human society.

But even if it was an unavoidable misunderstanding, that was that, and this was this.

No matter how much Daria had excuses, to the demon girl, she was just someone who had tried to harm her.

“Um… I’ll formally apologize. I misunderstood. I didn’t know about these circumstances and jumped to conclusions. Ah! Of course, just saying sorry isn’t enough! I’ll make up for this mistake later…”

“Lies! You think I don’t know you’re trying to deceive me and kill me!”

“K-kill you? When did I ever say something so terrible…!”

Of course, she hadn’t used the direct word “kill.”

She had just used words of a similar level.

Daria knew this too, so her voice gradually grew smaller.

Since Daria had been the one to most strongly argue that the demon girl needed to be defeated, she had even less to say.

Daria felt a sense of crisis she hadn’t even felt during the Inquisition.

Cold sweat poured down her back, and her mouth felt inexplicably dry.

Because there was something that really bothered her.

She desperately looked around, seeking help from her companions.

But Arisa and the others had already started avoiding her gaze, giving off the vibe that they were cutting her off.

Even though they had eagerly followed her lead when she suggested going together, now that the situation had turned out like this, they were acting like bystanders, treating it as someone else’s problem. The world of adventurers is truly merciless.

But honestly, even if Daria were in their shoes, she probably would have done the same—staying silent and not defending her.

In the end, it was Kurt who stepped in, unable to bear the awkward and painful situation any longer.

Kurt forcibly pulled the girl clinging to his pants and spoke.

“Sigh. How long are you going to hold onto my pants?”

“Ah! W-wait! I’m not mentally prepared yet…!”

“You can’t stay here forever. By now, Mari must be worried about us, so let’s head back first.”

“N-no! I won’t join a group of barbarians like you! So you stay here!”

At Kurt’s words, the demon girl shook her head violently and clung to him again.

Even though they had only met less than an hour ago, she seemed to strongly trust Kurt, likely because he had saved her.

She even threw a tantrum, clinging to Kurt.

“Then we’ll leave, and you can stay here alone.”

But Kurt was cold.

“N-no…! I’m sick of being trapped here alone…! Don’t go!”

At Kurt’s firm words, the girl began to sob like a lost child.

She didn’t want to be separated from Kurt, but she was also scared to go to the place where the rest of the party was, especially with Daria there.

That was the whip.

Then Kurt offered the carrot.

“And it’s almost mealtime. We need to eat. We left all the cooking tools and ingredients back there.”

“…Meal?”

It was a sweet carrot, almost like a demon’s whisper.

“Yeah. You’ve been running around a lot, so you must be getting hungry. There’s plenty of ingredients, so you can eat with us. You probably haven’t had good food in a place like this.”

“…Cooking.”

In an instant, the wariness and fear in the demon girl’s eyes melted away, replaced by anticipation for the delicious food and sweet desserts Kurt had mentioned.

Seeing this, Daria muttered in a small voice, careful not to provoke the demon girl.

“What… It’s not like we’re kidnappers trying to lure a child. How could such a simple method work on someone who was trembling just a moment ago…?”

But what Daria found most unbelievable was…

“Hmm. I’m in the mood. Let’s have dessert today. Something sweet.”

“Sweet… Ahem. If you insist so much, I suppose I have no choice! It wouldn’t be ladylike to keep refusing! I’ll humor you!”

“Why… does that method work every time…!?”

“Hmm. Food. Most minor problems can be solved by sharing a good meal.”

And so, thanks to Kurt’s mediation, Daria was able to get a chance to apologize to the demon girl.

Of course, she should have been grateful to Kurt, but for some reason, she felt a sense of unfairness.

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